Chika Okeke-Agulu | Princeton University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Chika Okeke-Agulu
Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 2006
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, May 1, 2023
Intellect Books, Oct 15, 2019
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2009
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, Mar 1, 2013
South Atlantic Quarterly, Jul 1, 2010
This essay focuses on the work of the Art Society—a group formed by art students at the Nigerian ... more This essay focuses on the work of the Art Society—a group formed by art students at the Nigerian College of Art, Science, and Technology, Zaria (1957–61)—and suggests that the work of its key members in the 1960s was the first significant manifestation of postcolonial modernism in Nigeria. Postcolonial modernism, the essay argues, refers to a set of formal and critical attitudes adopted by African and black artists at the dawn of political independence as a countermeasure against the threat of loss of self in the maelstrom unleashed by Western cultural imperialism and its aftermath. In defining their relationship with European and African artistic heritages, the Art Society and other postcolonial artists emphasized the importance of local and indigenous artistic resources in the making of their decidedly modernist work. The essay details the convening of the postcolonial literary and artistic avant-garde at the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, Ibadan, Nigeria, in the early 1960s and claims that their modernism was directly linked to the practice and rhetoric of political and cultural decolonization and sovereignty. Further, the essay argues that in recognizing and advocating the equal validity of the plastic and conceptual potential of indigenous African, non-Western, and European artistic traditions in the construction of the modern, the Art Society and its contemporaries testified to modernism's transnational and multicultural foundations. It suggests that the exploration of the historical implications of the encounter with multiple, sometimes contradictory logics of politics, art, and culture involves what the author describes as compound consciousness—the willful incorporation and critical resolution of the alienation and fragmented subjectivity produced by the colonial experience.
This panel discussion featured a range of perspectives from individuals whose work intersects wit... more This panel discussion featured a range of perspectives from individuals whose work intersects with the ideas and context of artist Bodys Isek Kingelez, drawing especially from Kingelez's interest in national identity and urban planning, and his experiences in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Panelists included photographer Sammy Baloji and anthropologist Filip de Boeck, coauthors of Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds (2016); Chika Okeke-Agulu, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University; Hannah Beachler, production designer of Black Panther (2018) and other films; and artist Saya Woolfalk. The program, held in conjunction with the exhibition Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams at the MoMa was moderated by Sarah Suzuki, Director, Opening of the New Museum, and Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints.status: Published onlin
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2010
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2020
In February 2020, the author spent a day with Penny Siopis in her studio at the Michaelis School ... more In February 2020, the author spent a day with Penny Siopis in her studio at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, to discuss the artist’s new ink and wood-glue paintings, which she adopted in 2008 as her primary painting medium. This new direction is quite significant for an artist who, in the 1980s at the height of the antiapartheid movement, made ardently realistic figurative oil and mixed-media paintings that signified the psychic detritus of apartheid’s pathologies. The weighty sparseness of Siopis’s Cake paintings (1981–81) and the airless excess of the History paintings (late 1980s) might have been the artist’s way of both dealing with and reflecting on the psychology of apartheid as the institution lurched to its inevitable end in 1990. In the early 2000s, before settling on ink and wood glue, Siopis spent a few years producing oil and ink paintings that contributed to the making of postapartheid trauma art—investigations into the psychic, moral, and ethi...
Choice Reviews Online, 2010
... Einige vorgestellte Künstler: Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader At... more ... Einige vorgestellte Künstler: Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Luis Basto, Candice Breitz, Moustapha Dimé, Marlene Dumas, Victor Ekpuk, Samuel Fosso, Jak Katarikawe, William Kentridge, Rachid Koraichi, Mona Mazouk, Julie Mehretu ...
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2010
... surround-ings, real or biographical, John Picton mentioning the British firsts with modern Af... more ... surround-ings, real or biographical, John Picton mentioning the British firsts with modern African art, jegede following that shortly with, Odundo excepted, things ... I think it was Sylvester Ogbechie who, in a paper at the College Art Association (CAA) a few years ago, traced this ...
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2008
Prior to that, since the mid-eighties we have seen a steady rise in the number of exhibitions on ... more Prior to that, since the mid-eighties we have seen a steady rise in the number of exhibitions on African art, and, more specifically, on contemporary African art. Consequently we have witnessed the proliferation of exhibition catalogues and critical articles both validating and contesting the various discourses projected by these exhibitions. Examples are numerous. They are mostly what is referred to as "mega" shows and art festivals dedicated to contemporary
Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 2006
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, May 1, 2023
Intellect Books, Oct 15, 2019
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2009
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, Mar 1, 2013
South Atlantic Quarterly, Jul 1, 2010
This essay focuses on the work of the Art Society—a group formed by art students at the Nigerian ... more This essay focuses on the work of the Art Society—a group formed by art students at the Nigerian College of Art, Science, and Technology, Zaria (1957–61)—and suggests that the work of its key members in the 1960s was the first significant manifestation of postcolonial modernism in Nigeria. Postcolonial modernism, the essay argues, refers to a set of formal and critical attitudes adopted by African and black artists at the dawn of political independence as a countermeasure against the threat of loss of self in the maelstrom unleashed by Western cultural imperialism and its aftermath. In defining their relationship with European and African artistic heritages, the Art Society and other postcolonial artists emphasized the importance of local and indigenous artistic resources in the making of their decidedly modernist work. The essay details the convening of the postcolonial literary and artistic avant-garde at the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, Ibadan, Nigeria, in the early 1960s and claims that their modernism was directly linked to the practice and rhetoric of political and cultural decolonization and sovereignty. Further, the essay argues that in recognizing and advocating the equal validity of the plastic and conceptual potential of indigenous African, non-Western, and European artistic traditions in the construction of the modern, the Art Society and its contemporaries testified to modernism's transnational and multicultural foundations. It suggests that the exploration of the historical implications of the encounter with multiple, sometimes contradictory logics of politics, art, and culture involves what the author describes as compound consciousness—the willful incorporation and critical resolution of the alienation and fragmented subjectivity produced by the colonial experience.
This panel discussion featured a range of perspectives from individuals whose work intersects wit... more This panel discussion featured a range of perspectives from individuals whose work intersects with the ideas and context of artist Bodys Isek Kingelez, drawing especially from Kingelez's interest in national identity and urban planning, and his experiences in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Panelists included photographer Sammy Baloji and anthropologist Filip de Boeck, coauthors of Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds (2016); Chika Okeke-Agulu, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University; Hannah Beachler, production designer of Black Panther (2018) and other films; and artist Saya Woolfalk. The program, held in conjunction with the exhibition Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams at the MoMa was moderated by Sarah Suzuki, Director, Opening of the New Museum, and Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints.status: Published onlin
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2010
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2020
In February 2020, the author spent a day with Penny Siopis in her studio at the Michaelis School ... more In February 2020, the author spent a day with Penny Siopis in her studio at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, to discuss the artist’s new ink and wood-glue paintings, which she adopted in 2008 as her primary painting medium. This new direction is quite significant for an artist who, in the 1980s at the height of the antiapartheid movement, made ardently realistic figurative oil and mixed-media paintings that signified the psychic detritus of apartheid’s pathologies. The weighty sparseness of Siopis’s Cake paintings (1981–81) and the airless excess of the History paintings (late 1980s) might have been the artist’s way of both dealing with and reflecting on the psychology of apartheid as the institution lurched to its inevitable end in 1990. In the early 2000s, before settling on ink and wood glue, Siopis spent a few years producing oil and ink paintings that contributed to the making of postapartheid trauma art—investigations into the psychic, moral, and ethi...
Choice Reviews Online, 2010
... Einige vorgestellte Künstler: Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader At... more ... Einige vorgestellte Künstler: Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Luis Basto, Candice Breitz, Moustapha Dimé, Marlene Dumas, Victor Ekpuk, Samuel Fosso, Jak Katarikawe, William Kentridge, Rachid Koraichi, Mona Mazouk, Julie Mehretu ...
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2010
... surround-ings, real or biographical, John Picton mentioning the British firsts with modern Af... more ... surround-ings, real or biographical, John Picton mentioning the British firsts with modern African art, jegede following that shortly with, Odundo excepted, things ... I think it was Sylvester Ogbechie who, in a paper at the College Art Association (CAA) a few years ago, traced this ...
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2008
Prior to that, since the mid-eighties we have seen a steady rise in the number of exhibitions on ... more Prior to that, since the mid-eighties we have seen a steady rise in the number of exhibitions on African art, and, more specifically, on contemporary African art. Consequently we have witnessed the proliferation of exhibition catalogues and critical articles both validating and contesting the various discourses projected by these exhibitions. Examples are numerous. They are mostly what is referred to as "mega" shows and art festivals dedicated to contemporary